More reforms possible in state water management

FILE - Rep. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, asks a question during a discussion at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017.

SALT LAKE CITY — As Utah continues to harness management of its water resources, lawmakers are steadily pushing legislation to tweak problems auditors and others highlighted in the last few years.

One of them?

Universal sourcing requirements for drinking water systems that are too high, leading to oversized piping and inflated numbers over how much water a city actually needs to meet residential and public safety requirements.

"This size is way above what average consumption is across the state," said Rep. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton. "Policywise, everyone who has come to the table has agreed those statewide standards are too high."

Sandall's HB303, which passed out of the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee on Friday, attempts to create a minimum standard, but one that is system-specific based on three years of data showing historical use.

"This is not a new standard," he said. "Each individual water provider can ask for additional sizing standards."

The legislation grew out of audits performed by the Office of Legislative Auditor General that reviewed the universal standard and found it led to unrealistic requirements for water providers, requiring peak demand flows that were artificially high.

"This bill is four years in the making," said Marie Owens, director of the Utah Division of Drinking Water. "It is in direct response to legislative audits" critical of the standard.

"Those sizing standards have protected public health, but we could not go back and justify where those standards originated from or how they were picked," she said.

Owens said as her division began to dig into the problematic standard and how to arrive at fix, it was clear there wasn't an easy solution.

"There is no way to determine an applicable sizing statewide," she said. "There needs to be a specific sizing standard for each system across the state."